Young students express their dreams'

Students in the third and fourth grade classes of Mr. Murphy at Frank Zeek Elementary School spent some time last week discussing the legacy of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

"In class we talked abut Rev. King, " Murphy explained. "We discussed briefly Rosa Parks and the civil rights movement. Our discussion took us to the Civil War and Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. We talked about the concept of freedom and what it means."

From that, the students were asked to write down their "dream" for society. The following are some of their essays. The individual names of the children who wrote were not provided to the Daily Journal .

? My dream is I wish we had bullet proof schools. I would not like someone to get shot. I would like for our school to be protected. It we don't have bullet proof schools obviously someone will get hurt. We can make our schools safer by getting guards.

? I have a dream that all animals will have a loving home and owner. Animals do not deserve to be beaten, tortured or starved. animal abuse is just plain mean. If you have an animal you should make sure that your pet has a loving home. to stop animal abuse you should adopt responsibly and keep your animals healthy.

? I have a dream. I want cigarettes to be illegal in every state. The reason I think that is because people won't die fast. My dad smokes and I worry about him. That is the reason it would be good for cigarettes to be illegal.

? I dream of free borders. Today many people cannot travel back and forth between Mexico and the United States because they do not have permission. A lot of Mexican people have snuck into the USA because there are better jobs that pay more in America. This is why they sneak into the country.

The problem is often they want to go back and see a lot of their family members. However, they don't because they are afraid of not being able to come back to America.

My dream of free borders would allow Mexican families to travel freely. They could go back and forth between the countries, see their families, bring them money, help the elders, and visit old friends.

? I have a dream that there's no more animal abuse. There are no good reasons to hurt animals. By abusing animals we run the risk of making them go extinct and that's not good. Some ways people abuse animals are they abandon them, they tie them up and leave them to die. Others can't take care of them or don't like their animals or they're mean. If that doesn't happen no other animals will feel that pain. So feed your animal and take care of your animal. If you can't take care of them, take them to the animal shelter or give them away.

? I have a dream that when I grow up I want to be a soldier because I want to help our country. I also would be able to see lots of places. I could go to Hawaii and Japan. I want to be a rifleman. I want to be in the military for 2 years. I want to go to the military when I am 18. At 20, I want to start my career. I want to be a police officer. I want to patrol neighborhoods. There is a lot of things a police officer does. They set up road blocks. They have tire spikes. They arrest people for crimes. They carry handcuffs, a gun and a baton. I can't wait to be a cop.

? I have a dream that all the homeless will have a home and all people are happy. One reason is because I don't want them to get sick outside. Another reason is because it is sad to see people living outside on the streets. It makes me worry some.

Helping them will be hard. There are a lot of homeless people. I think one way we could help them is we can give them food. This will help them not starve. Another thing we can do is we can give them money. That will help them find a place to stay.

This is a big problem that lots of people can solve. It takes all of us. If we help them, it will make our world better.

? One dream I have is to be a mechanic. I think it would be cool to work on all kinds of cars. It will save money and if my car ever has problems, I can work on it myself. It'll keep me busy doing something I like. I am not going to buy a car, I'm going to make one.

? Today I am going to tell you my dream. I dreamed of a world where people would not kill other people. It is cruel to kill other people. That it is not nice to hurt other people. How my dream could come true is, I would tell people not to kill other people. Another way how my dream could come true is be nice to people around me so they don't kill other people. The next way is that if they probably will be nice and say nice stuff to other people.

? A long time ago Martin Luther King had a dream and now this is mine. My dream is about homeless people. I see homeless people everywhere. I feel bad and sad. I think they should get free homeless to live in. So we should help them get homes. There is a homeless person I see all the time. My mom told me he had cancer. I was sad when she told me that he had cancer. So we have to help them. So that was my dream. I hope it will happen.